Kilroy Was Here
by PETER VIERECK
An example of genuine folklore emerging from this war is the expression “Kilroy was here,” scribbled everywhere by American soldiers and implying that nothing was too adventurous or inaccessible for them. The idea of this poem was suggested to the author, who served as a Technical Sergeant overseas in the Italian campaign, by a Harvard lecture of John H. Finley, Jr., pointing out the Kilroy spirit in Ulysses. THE EDITOR
1
ALSO Ulysses once — that other war.
(Is it because we find his scrawl Today on every privy door That we forget his ancient role?)
Also was there — he did it for the wages —
When a Cat hay-drunk Genoese set sail.
Whenever “longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,”Kilroy is there;
he tells The Miller’s Tale.
(Is it because we find his scrawl Today on every privy door That we forget his ancient role?)
Also was there — he did it for the wages —
When a Cat hay-drunk Genoese set sail.
Whenever “longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,”Kilroy is there;
he tells The Miller’s Tale.
2
At times he seems a paranoiac king
Who stamps his crest on walls and says, “ My own!”
But in the end he fades like a lost tune.
Tossed here and there, whom all the breezes sing.
“Kilroy was here”; these words sound wanly gay,
Haughty yet tired with long marching.
He is Orestes — guilty of what crime? —
For whom the Furies still are searching;
When they arrive, they find their prey
(Leaving his name to mock them) went away.
Sometimes he does not flee from them in time:
“ Kilroy was — ”
{with his blood a dying man Wrote half the phrase out, fainting in Bataan.)
Who stamps his crest on walls and says, “ My own!”
But in the end he fades like a lost tune.
Tossed here and there, whom all the breezes sing.
“Kilroy was here”; these words sound wanly gay,
Haughty yet tired with long marching.
He is Orestes — guilty of what crime? —
For whom the Furies still are searching;
When they arrive, they find their prey
(Leaving his name to mock them) went away.
Sometimes he does not flee from them in time:
“ Kilroy was — ”
{with his blood a dying man Wrote half the phrase out, fainting in Bataan.)
3
Kilroy, beware. “HOME” is the final trap
That lurks for you in many a wily shape:
In pipe-and-slippers plus a Loyal Hound
Or fooling around, just fooling around.
Kind to the old (their warm Penelope)
33 ut fierce to boys,
thus “home” becomes that sea,
Horribly disguised, where you were always drowned, —
(How could suburban Crete condone The yarns you would have V-mailed from the sun?) —
And folksy fishes sip Icarian tea.
One stab of hopeless wings imprinted your
Exultant Kilroy-signature
Upon sheer sky for all the world to stare:
“ I was there! I was there! I was there! ”
That lurks for you in many a wily shape:
In pipe-and-slippers plus a Loyal Hound
Or fooling around, just fooling around.
Kind to the old (their warm Penelope)
33 ut fierce to boys,
thus “home” becomes that sea,
Horribly disguised, where you were always drowned, —
(How could suburban Crete condone The yarns you would have V-mailed from the sun?) —
And folksy fishes sip Icarian tea.
One stab of hopeless wings imprinted your
Exultant Kilroy-signature
Upon sheer sky for all the world to stare:
“ I was there! I was there! I was there! ”
4
The G.I. Faustus who was
everywhere
Strolled home again. “What was it like outside?”
Asked Can’t, with his good neighbors Ought and But
And pale Perhaps and grave-eyed Better Not;
For “Kilroy” means: the world is very wide.
He was there, he was there, he was there!
And in the suburbs Can’t sat down and cried.
everywhere
Strolled home again. “What was it like outside?”
Asked Can’t, with his good neighbors Ought and But
And pale Perhaps and grave-eyed Better Not;
For “Kilroy” means: the world is very wide.
He was there, he was there, he was there!
And in the suburbs Can’t sat down and cried.